


Interim

by Warpony



Series: Feral Echoes [16]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blindness, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Campaign 1, Pre-Shadowgast, Slow Burn, Soldier Boys, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24529993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warpony/pseuds/Warpony
Summary: Waiting can be more difficult than the hardest battles...
Relationships: Leylas Kryn | The Bright Queen/Quana Kryn, Verin Thelyss/Original Character(s)
Series: Feral Echoes [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711534
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Interim

It was swiftly, painfully, obvious that only Verin Thelyss was allowed on Brunnera's right side.

The firbolg had only shied at first when others approached him from the right. The more it happened, the more he was startled or collided with people or things... and longer his sight was gone... the more aggressive he became about it.

He'd even growled at Quana Kryn once, though the Dusk Captain had only seemed to find it amusing and accepted Brunnera's grumbled apology.

Though Verin was fairly sure considering all that had happened Brunnera could puke on the general's boots and she'd brush it off.

Being in Rosohna had been working on the firbolg's temper a bit. There seemed to be constant steady flow of visitors, well-wishers and admirers showing up between the regular presence of clerics and healers. Representatives of the Dens that wanted to express their thanks and not to subtly try to convince Brunnera to be consecuted under their name. Aurora Watch captains and Taskhands that come to commend Brunnera on his actions and Verin on training such a fine soldier. Skysybil and Dunloch Mirimm doing a bit of both and offering the knight and fighter both positions within the closed circuit of the Lucid Bastion’s security.

Even the Bright Queen herself came with Quana at her side. Verin had noticed how Brunnera had kept his eye averted and ears back and low while Leylas spoke. The words sounded rehearsed but sincere, as if Leylas was unused to speaking without a script. She looped a thick purple ribbon with a platinum medal around the fighter’s neck and promised him her favor.

Brunnera had only asked quietly that Verin be allowed to stay with him as long as the Taskhand desired and asked again for affirmation of his promised return to the Mighty Nein. He'd taken the medal off with Verin's help the moment that they were left alone again.

Even Essek had returned more than once to speak with Brunnera. He'd seemed... different to Verin. When it was the three of them alone or when Verin slipped in and the Shadowhand and the fighter had been speaking together Essek seemed softer in so many ways. Much to Verin’s happiness his elder sibling didn’t harden or turn vicious when Verin spoke to him in those moments, though he was still as evasive and secretive as ever. It was something Verin never thought he'd see but it fed his hope and stubborn dream.

It was all a little much for Brunnera. On top of the fighter feeling weaker and more exhausted than he had in all his life, compared to even his most starved days of the String, the crush and influx of so much attention was fraying his nerves. 

The Volstrucker's spell had ravaged his body from within. His life truly had only been saved by his strength. The very constitution of his system tested by the vicious arcane acid that certainly would have killed smaller or weaker creatures.

The small army of mages and clerics that had been orbiting the firbolg trying to assess the nature of the spell and try their hands at healing the internal and external damage left behind had yet to make a breakthrough and Brunnera had swiftly added 'arcane medical mystery' to the rapidly growing list of titles that were thrust on him.

Verin was glad they'd convinced Druid Drinn to stay as long as she had. Brunnera seemed to have taken the Wildmother's healing better. The thick poultices she'd made of herbs and clean, fresh water had done more to heal his blistered and gouged face than most of the work of the Luxon clerics. Most of the scalding had healed into a localized gash cutting through eyebrow, eye and cheek; the healed parts of his skin had even grown back his fur. Though where the gash was the flesh still looked raw and inflamed even several days later and Verin feared it was cursed. Brunnera's once bright blue eye was milky and clouded. The fighter claimed some shadows in it yet and refused to allow the eye be removed completely. Not yet. It'd all boiled down to Brunnera being hyper aware on his 'blind' side and further devolved until only Verin was welcome on the right for any extended period of time.

Verin had even taken to sleeping on the firbolg’s right side.

Seeing Brunnera felled and helping him crawl back from near death had rattled Verin’s core in a way that hadn’t since the death of his father. He felt torn, remiss from postponing returning to his duties at the front or Bazzoxan but the desire to stay at the firbolg fighter’s side was something more primordial. Something that stemmed from the core of himself, not from training or duty or years of private education from his mother and the rest of Den Thelyss.

Verin internally reasoned it away the best he was able. That delaying his return was just to ensure that one of his best soldiers was on his feet and able to return with him. That the tangled _need_ to see Brunnera whole and hale wasn’t completely some selfish personal desire. Brunnera wasn’t exactly rebuffing him, if anything Verin found himself more often than not the one that the fighter was reaching for first. 

A hundred brief signs of affection and connection that all too quickly Verin found he had been starved of before and was addicted to now. A brush across the shoulders, a playful shove, being tucked warmly into the fighter’s side as they walked, the warm coil of a tail around his arm or thigh.

It wasn’t so bad, he supposed, to take a little comfort in the whole mess of everything. Brunnera didn’t seem shy about it.

If the multiple times Verin had found he'd dozed off next to Brunnera and woke to find the fighter had curled up around him in a protective ball of fur and muscle was anything to go on at least.

Neither of them had known this as children. Soft comfort and easy closeness. The contentment that went hand in hand with familiarity and the fine threads of whatever was slowly growing between them to bond them together. Verin had grown up with distance and aloofness that left him starved. Brunnera had been raised with pain and brutality making him guarded. The Nein had done a good job of setting the fighter on the path to healing from the savagery of the String. In turn Brunnera’s new easiness with contact and comfort, both seeking and giving, had cracked cleanly through the century old shell of learned standoffishness Verin carried with him.

Every day that it wasn’t taken away or held back the more Verin sank into the readily given attention.

It soothed the fighter as well. The stress of a steady parade every day of strangers and acquaintances had his hackles raised. Firbolgs by nature unsociable outside of their clans and family. Alpine firbolgs even more aloof and often lived a completely solitary life if they were not in the company of their families. Brunnera never felt that need for isolation more than those days following the Volstrucker assassination attempt and the time he spent on the mend. The fighter kept himself together the best he was able every day until it seemed like the hour was late enough that visitors and well-wishers might be considered rude.

Only then did the fighter feel like he could breathe again, settle down and get anything resembling rest done. Those few hours were as close to peace as they’d found. Talking quietly together, Verin talking about the events of the day, Brunnera weaving stories from experience or thin air until one or both of them fell asleep.

Brunnera was just starting to drift a bit. Verin was curled up on his chest, tucked in under his right arm and shamelessly using his bicep at a pillow. He'd been asleep for a few hours at this point.

The firbolg fighter didn't begrudge him. The Taskhand had rough and long day relaying information back and forth from the front at Ashguard and Bazzoxan and working with Waccoh on improved ballista designs. The headaches that came with repeating and relaying Sending messages back and forth for hours and dealing with the eccentric orc scientist had left the knight exhausted, sore and without an appetite. Brunnera knew they would sooner than later make their way back to the war. The fighter was glad for it in a sad way; there was a simpleness to war that did not leave the battlefield that often made it all that much harder for some soldiers to leave the war behind. He was weary of the Lucid Bastion and all its tricks and shows. Though a small part of him had hoped that the Nein would reappear in Rosohna while he was so close. Easy to be returned.

Verin was well hidden from the room, with a wall to one side, Brunnera's large bulk blocking the other and tucked under a fur blanket. The steady rise and fall of his breathing and drum of his heat against Brunnera's side lulling the fighter to sleep, too.

But he came awake again just as quickly as a shift of displaced air and the press of arcane magic whispered through the room.

Brunnera stayed in his position save for an ear flicking towards the intruder and took a deep draw of air. Muscles tensing and hackles raising and he tensed for a fight.

Brunnera recognized the scent the instant it hit him, turning his head curiously until his good eye fell on Essek Thelyss, floating gently a few feet from them. Brunnera shifted just enough to gently cover the side of Verin's face and ear with his hand. The Echo Knight only sighed and burrowed deeper against Brunnera's bicep, unaware his hearing was being muffled purposefully.

Brunnera looked back towards Essek. A little unsurprised to see the questioning and clearly curious look on his face when he spotted Verin tucked into the firbolg’s side. They’d talked together a few times but Verin had always held himself carefully around his brother. Intimacy certainly wasn’t something that the brothers displayed in one another’s company.

"Very interesting." Essek hummed and Brunnera flicked his ears back, narrowing his gaze. "But not why I am here.”

Brunnera huffed softly in response, waiting for him to go on.

Though, for what it was worth, when Essek spoke again his voice was lower, quieter. "I have not heard from the Nein in twenty three days."

Brunnera's brow dipped, he could just barely hear the carefully covered and layered tone of anxiety. He gave a slight nod, encouraging him to go on.

"I attempted to message them several times... you had not said anything that led me to believe they had messaged you either." Essek narrowed his eyes; Brunnera could read the crease of worry in his brow. "Do you know where they are?"

Brunnera nodded, lifting his hand a bit as Verin shifted, rolling over and curling back up against the firbolg's side. Brunnera lightly stroked through the knight's platinum hair once before his hand settled back over his ear again.

"Nicodranas." He whispered.

"The whole of this time? A month? Surely they aren't visiting Jester's mother for a month. They can hardly stay in Rosohna for two days in a row." Essek huffed.

"Rescue mission." Brunnera scolded softly. "Yussa... Happy Fun Ball..."

"... what in the Light is a 'Happy Fun Ball'?"

"Wizard trap."

Essek tenses suddenly, far more than he meant to show, Brunnera is sure. He sees a name ghost on the Shadowhand’s lips. The fighter shakes his head, lifting his free hand to stop Essek. The mage pauses, eyes narrowing at the fighter.

"He's safe... they'll look after each... after each other... Caleb's safe..." Brunnera promised.

"How do you know? Are they able to communicate with you?" Essek muttered, just an edge of petulance.

Brunnera shook his head. "Not directly… Mutual friend...”

He was a bit unwilling to tell Essek the messages he’d gotten from Allura Vysoren, only because he'd not been granted permission by Allura herself. She was kind enough to keep him informed of the Nein’s movements within the Folding Halls at the expense of her own time and spells. She certainly didn’t have to, Brunnera respected her deeply for it. "They call her... she calls me... but not often...Updates... and in case... Plan B…"

"I see... and who exactly would this Plan B involve?" Essek asked, unsatisfied but begrudgingly accepting what he was being told. Brunnera swore he could see Essek's hands moving under his mantle.

"Tal'Dorei champions... me... that’s it... to dangerous... especially for spellcasters... of any kind..." Brunnera looked down to the top of Verin's head when the knight shifted a little. He looked so small compared to the firbolg, fey in that classically Drow way and made all that much smaller beside the massive giantkin Brunnera. 

"Why has it taken this long? Surely twenty days is more than enough to rescue this Yussa." Essek was pacing a bit. It was strange to watch someone pace and levitate at the same time. 

"Time is different... in the Happy Fun Ball... much slower... an hour there... a day here... " The fighter explained. 

"An hour... then to them is has been less than a day?" Essek asked his surprise tinged with that mage curiosity that Caleb had as well.

Brunnera nodded. 

"And... you're sure they will return?" Essek fidgeted. 

"On their own... or if... we must... fetch them..." Brunnera rumbled, his arm tightened a little around Verin's sleeping form. "Won't lose anyone... ever again..."

**Author's Note:**

> This really was an interim that mostly fudges the timelines a little. Trust me, I can't do the math on it. Forgive me. But its an opportunity for a little insight and development and seeding a few future events.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed! Thank you for reading!


End file.
